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MY XX!#*! SOAPBOX

Welcome to the cranky old pressman blogging platform of the equally irritable and aged printer of the same name. Follow him to learn about contemporary applications of the ancient craft of letterpress.

  • LOOK MA NO BRANDS! – Part 1

    Cheers to those who couldn’t settle for just a steady paycheck, but instead decide to go out on their own. Financial security be damned. The whole start-up budget goes to the necessary equipment to be the best at whatever it is they do. No money for fancy branding materials, just maybe some sales receipts and…

  • Wood type is the medium….

    Wood type is the medium….

    And if the medium is the message, then wood type is a bull horn! Wood type is mostly large, all caps, strong and bold. It is one of the oldest typesetting techniques for printing. Individual letters were painstakingly routed out of polished hardwood, put into an alphabet collection and sold to printers far and wide.…

  • The Origins of Points and Picas: From Musket Balls to Comic Sans

    Keep your inch ruler at home because we only use points and picas around the shop here. The point and pica system is the cornerstone of typography and the whole letterpress printing system. The point is believed to have originated in the 15th century. It is the smallest unit of measurement for type, this size…